Anonymous strikes again: Iranian and UAE governments hacked

Hackers have broken into the networks of both the Iranian and the Dubai governments, stealing more than 10,000 email messages as well as system usernames and passwords and releasing them online.

The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs succumbed to a hacking attack perpetrated by Anonymous, which yielded the bulk of the email addresses. And, on Friday afternoon, a lone hacker – apparently with links to the group – struck the Dubai government’s system, releasing a “historic list of former gov.ae email passwords”, the domain used by the Arab Emirate.

While the first hack yielded around 10,000 emails, taken from the Iranian government and took control of some of its servers, the second was much smaller, including only around 100 usernames with passwords taken from the Dubai government, which are thought to be out-of-date. However, they serve to indicate the group’s reach just one day after another hacking group carried out an attack which yet again rocked Sony.

The hacktivist responsible for targeting Dubai said he had carried out the assault “because it’s time governments learn they have no power on the internet. This is our world”.

Reports first surfaced on technology and hacking blogs yesterday that Anonymous, perhaps the best-known of the so-called “hacktivists” had broken into the Iranian government’s system. One of the hackers reportedly sent a message to The Next Web from the Iranian servers they controlled in a bid to prove their authenticity.

According to Joel Falconer, writing for the technology blog, the emails in Anonymous’ possession and released on file-sharing site Pirate Bay include approvals and rejections for visas and passports.

He quotes a source from the group as saying: “It’s near the election’s anniversary. [Iran’s contested 2009 election] We had to do something.”

Falconer reports the source, predictably unnamed, as saying the group takes down Iranian government servers on a regular basis. The source also threatened a further attack: “For the election’s anniversary, we have a complete DDoS [Denial of Service] attack day,” he told Falconer.

On Friday evening, the @Anony_Ops Twitter account, said to be used to announce Anonymous operations, tweeted: Anonymous releases Dubai, UAE government’s usernames and passwords…They should’ve expected us!” as well as a link top a site hosting the information.

Later, a Twitter user appeared to claim responsibility for the UAE hack, tweeting: “Oh you. I hope you enjoyed my password dump. More will be incoming.”

Now why would Anonymous deploy itself against Iran on behalf of Israel?

I don’t buy this article for a second. The Chinese denied that they
hacked gmail and countered that it was the US that was attacking nations
through the internet.

stickytruth2

Only two interested in control of the ME, USA and Israel, especially the latter, just look at their track record from the 1940’s. However justice will win in the end.

khamisbintouq

Why hack Dubai when the government are the people of the nation. They have no relations to the hackers or whatsoever and they help the poor and orphans 24/7, this is just childesh and asks for money to be spent on firewalls and security appliances rather than helping the people for good if you see this from a wide point of view. /golfclap